FresnoBee.com
The Fresno Bee Editorial Opinion Blog
Posted by Jim Boren
August 21, 2007 04:40 PM

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know about next year’s Fresno County
District 5 supervisor electionDebbie Poochigian, one of the candidates
challenging Supervisor Bob Waterston in next year’s District 5 race,
is running third in fund-raising, according to the political wiseguys
in the county. That’s true if you don’t look at all the campaign
statements on file in the Fresno County Elections Office.

This is the way some people see the fund-raising race so far: Clovis
Council Member Nathan Magsig leads with close to $214,000, with
Waterston having more than $208,000. Poochigian is third with
$168,900.

But look a little deeper and you’ll see that Poochigian has other
money potentially at her disposal. Her father, the late Deran
Koligian, still has $108,737 in his old supervisorial account. Her
husband, former state Sen. Chuck Poochigian, has $148,848 in his
account from his unsuccessful run for attorney general last year.

It’s unclear whether Debbie Poochigian can transfer all of that money
to her supervisorial campaign. But if she can, she has $426,485
available without holding another fund-raiser. Maybe she won’t be able
to use all that money because of campaign laws, and maybe her husband
will want to keep his campaign account open in case he runs for
something in 2010.

But just maybe she is way ahead of her opponents already and they
don’t even know it. Some think this will be a million-dollar race,
with three experienced and well-funded politicians running. Poochigian
has proven in dozens of campaigns over a generation that she’s a major
fund-raiser for others. That’s a lot of IOUs, and she hasn’t even
asked donors to dig deeply into their pockets yet. She could be a
million-dollar candidate all by herself.

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